MARTIN MAWAYA
GWERU-Teen pregnancies in the Midlands province remain alarmingly high at 28%, above the national average of 23%, despite gains in modern contraceptive use and a decline in unmet family planning needs, a senior Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council (ZNFPC) official has revealed.
Presenting during the 2026 First Quarter Combined Provincial Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) and Family Planning Coordination Forum, Midlands provincial monitoring and evaluation officer Kudakwashe Mbedzi warned that the province was still battling a growing reproductive health crisis among adolescents and young people.
Mbedzi said while Midlands recorded significant progress in family planning indicators, the surge in teenage pregnancies and a high fertility rate of 4,5 compared to the national average of 3,9 remained a major concern.
“Midlands province boasts of increased modern contraceptive prevalence rate for married women from 67% to 72%, while unmet need dropped from 11% to 9,6%, a testament that a lot of work is being done.
However, the province is grappling with teen pregnancy at 28% against a national average of 23%,” he said.
The presentation exposed widening reproductive health challenges among adolescents, with 4 140 first-time family planning users aged between 10 and 24 years recorded during the quarter.
Of these, eight were girls aged between 10 and 14 years, while 1 595 were aged between 15 and 19 years.
The figures are likely to intensify debate around early sexual debut, access to contraceptives and gaps in sexual reproductive health education in communities and schools.
Mbedzi said the province had intensified outreach programmes targeting young people through colleges, youth centres and partnerships with organisations such as the National AIDS Council, Plan International and Katswe Sistahood.
He said college orientation programmes alone reached 3 440 students against a target of 1 200 during the quarter.
The province also distributed more than 1,5 million male condoms and 21 814 female condoms during the first quarter of 2026, with Kwekwe, Gokwe South, Zvishavane and Gweru recording the highest uptake.
However, Mbedzi said family planning usage in Midlands remained heavily skewed towards short-term contraceptive methods such as combined oral contraceptives, Depo Provera and progesterone-only pills, raising concerns over limited uptake of long-term methods.
“IUCD uptake remains low due to limited commodities and very few trained service providers,” he said.
The report also flagged low uptake of the Sayana Press self-injection contraceptive despite its rollout across all eight districts in late 2025.
Although the province recorded a 7% increase in Sayana Press users between October 2025 and March 2026, Mbedzi said most women still preferred injections administered by health workers instead of self-injection.
“Self-injection clients are still very few, with most women preferring to be injected by a service provider,” he noted.
ZNFPC also raised concern over shortages of information, education and communication materials, inadequate reproductive health registers and lack of modern edutainment equipment at youth centres.
Mbedzi said there was urgent need for refresher sensitisation programmes, mentorship of health workers and stronger monitoring systems to improve uptake of reproductive health services, particularly among adolescents and young people.
He added that routine joint monitoring visits by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, ZNFPC, Population Services Zimbabwe and other partners had exposed gaps in documentation, clinical standards and community-level family planning programmes.
